


i make up things that i would never say (i say them very quietly)

by punkrockdog



Category: Dead Poets Society (1989)
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Misunderstanding, Poetry, Re-upload, idiot gay rights, other poets and keating very briefly mentioned, wonky timeline i guess? cause knox and chris get together before the play
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-27
Updated: 2019-08-27
Packaged: 2020-09-28 04:17:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20419784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/punkrockdog/pseuds/punkrockdog
Summary: Neil Perry has been in some sort of love with Todd since the day they met. He thinks that he would be in love with Todd in any version of his life. He can't imagine a world where Todd loves him back, though. He's wrong, of course. He's wrong about a lot of things (as most teenagers are). (Title from Richard Siken.)





	i make up things that i would never say (i say them very quietly)

Todd Anderson is beautiful.

That is the root of most of Neil Perry’s problems.

Todd is beautiful, and intelligent, and talented, and completely fucking oblivious.

It’s not like Neil hasn’t _tried _to get his attention. He’s jumped at every opportunity to help Todd with his homework, even if he’s also absolute shit at the subject. He talks to Todd, really truly has meaningful conversations with him, which is more than any of the other Poets can say. He thought his insistence in getting Todd to come to the meetings would be enough, but apparently not. And now Neil doesn’t even get to help Todd fumble with Latin because he needed to work on some stuff alone, _hey, don’t look so bummed. _(Neil hadn’t meant to pout.)

The study room feels a little too empty, a little too quiet. It’s funny that someone who tries his hardest to take up as little space as possible could leave such a big hole in his absence. It’s goddamn hilarious. 

Neil plops himself down next to Charlie, who looks up from his book with a smirk. Neil glares.

“What is it now, lover boy?” he leers.

“Buzz off, Dalton.”

Meeks glances over at the two of them. He has his headset hanging around his neck, and his curls are sticking out every which way. It’s funny, to see him so disheveled. Neil giggles.

“You guys are weird,” is all he says before turning back to the radio.

Charlie nods, and goes back to his book. _It’s not fair, _Neil thinks. _That everyone can be so calm while I’m in the middle of a crisis._

“You’re thinking too loud,” Charlie says, not looking up.

“Am not.”

“Yes, you are.”

“Are too!”

“You totally are.” 

Sometimes, Neil’s friends suck.

“What’s got you so bothered, Neil?” Knox has turned around in his chair now, much to the dismay of Cameron, who has been trying to get him to do his English for the past half hour.

“It’s- there’s this- it’s love stuff, Knoxious. Ooey gooey, gross, confusing love stuff.”

Knox smiles. He nods, runs a hand through his hair.

“Who is she?”

Neil gulps, always the drama queen. Charlie snorts, a little too loud, and Neil nudges him. Meeks has diverted his attention again, curious to find out who Neil is fawning over. Neil looks down at his lap. His cheeks feel hot, and there’s something heavy sitting on his chest.

“Well, she likes… she likes writing, you know, poetry, which is convenient, I suppose. She’s kind of shy, but it’s really easy to talk to her, you know? I feel like I’ve known her my whole life.”

It feels wrong to talk about Todd like this. It _is _wrong. Neil looks up just in time to catch the end of a knowing glance shared by Knox, Charlie, and Meeks. Pitts and Cameron and everyone else in the common room seem unaware of the crumbling ruin in front of them.

“She sounds great, Neil,” Knox says. He has a sad smile on his face. Like when he told them that he and Chris had broken up.

“She sounds _familiar," _Meeks whispers to himself. Charlie throws a ball of paper at him. Nolan opens the door to give them the five minute warning, which saves Neil from anymore pathetic fumbling.

When Neil opens the door to his room, Todd isn’t there. He must be in the shower. Neil is, albeit guiltily, thankful that he doesn’t have to face him right now. He wants to go to sleep and stop thinking about all this shit that’s making his heart feel too big for his chest.

Out of the corner of his eye, Neil notices a piece of paper on Todd’s desk. Any homework would be tucked away in its proper folder, so it must be something more interesting. 

Neil should ignore it. Neil should get into his pyjamas and go to bed. Neil shouldn’t read it, because that’s an invasion of privacy, and it’d be weird and creepy. Neil should really, really go to bed.

He takes a step towards the desk.

Neil is going to read the paper.

It’s a letter, he can tell that before reading a single word. But to who?

_Dear Mr. Keating._

Oh. Oh?

_To answer your question, this… person is in fact very special to me. I love a lot._

Whatever Todd wrote originally is scratched out, and there’s a hasty _her _scribbled above it. Neil’s heart sinks a little bit.

_She makes me smile a lot. She’s so passionate about everything she does. She’s fiery, is what I mean. Fiery and loud and she absolutely glows. I’m head over heels._

_So, to answer your other question, I do have something to write poetry about. I have a lot of that something._

Neil puts the paper back down. His eyes are too watery to read, anyhow. He has that hot singeing feeling in his gut and in his cheeks and underneath his skin, like he’s just been scolded by a teacher. He takes a shaky breath before promptly turning around, changing into his bedclothes, and deciding to never think about this again.

So, Todd really doesn’t love him back. Todd is in love with some girl who none of them have ever heard about.

That’s _fine. _

Neil is _fine _.

It’s none of his business, anyhow. He shouldn’t have even read the letter in the first place. He did this to himself. 

Despite this, Neil feels like he is going to die. He feels like he is going to choke on all of the tears staining his pillowcase. He feels like he is going to shatter.

The door opens, and he listens to Todd move quietly around the room. He hears the crinkle of paper folding, a drawer opening and closing, and the creak of the old bed as Todd settles in. It’s like a lullaby at this point, but Neil is too sad to find comfort in the familiarity.

“Goodnight, Neil,” Todd whispers. Neil doesn’t answer.

~~

“No fucking way.”

Charlie looks bewildered. Neil had called an emergency Dead Poets meeting, but just the two of them. They’re sat somewhere on the edge on the campus, and Neil is picking at grass and leaves.

“He’s writing to Mr. Keating about some girl, Charlie. Some girl that he’s never once talked about or mentioned or anything. When the fuck does he even have time to meet girls?”

“You- you have to be misunderstanding this somehow. You said there was a word crossed out, right? Maybe hewrote _him_ but was too scared to stick with it.” Charlie sounds desperate

“Or maybe he just spelled it wrong, or wrote it weird. You know he doesn’t use erasers.”

“I didn’t know that, actually.”

There’s a moment of silence, Neil feeling more silly and stupid by the second. He doesn’t remember when he realized that Todd scratches everything out even if there’s a perfectly good eraser at the end of his pencil. He can’t imagine not knowing all of Todd’s little quirks and habits.

“You’re too in love with him for this bullshit.”

Sometimes, Neil thinks that Charlie can read minds.

“Listen, Charlie-”

“No, Neil, don’t give me any of this shit. You have fawned over this motherfucker for too goddamn long to just give him up because of _some less than reliable _letter.”

Neil shrugs. He doesn’t want to give Todd up, especially not to some girl. (He thought he’d been done with all this girl-boy stuff once Knox and Chris decided it wasn’t gonna work out.)

But he doesn’t want to love someone who won’t love him back, who _can’t _love him back. He tells Charlie as much, and Charlie looks up at Neil with that glint in his eyes. He smiles.

“Why don’t you tell him? Lay out all your feelings, tell him exactly what you want, and bare your goddamn heart to him. Make Shakespeare fucking jealous. I mean, what do you have to lose?”

Neil gapes at him. 

_“Everything.” _

Charlie grins. 

“When has that ever stopped you?” 

~~ 

Neil is very stupid. He’s probably going to die tonight.

The plan is this: Neil is going to confess his undying love to Todd, and if Todd rejects him Neil is going to run away into the woods and never be seen again. Charlie had told him to calm down, but Neil thought that it was a perfectly reasonable backup plan. 

Todd is still in the shower. Neil feels like he’s going to throw up. He feels too hot underneath his sweater, and his hands won’t stop shaking. He’s taken his glasses off and put them back on about ninety times now, and he still can’t decide if it’d be better to wear them or not. 

There’s another piece of paper on Todd’s desk. He’s been adamantly ignoring it since he got back from dinner. He doesn’t want to read it, not after last time. He shouldn’t. It’ll probably only make him feel worse, and make him even more unsure about telling Todd how he feels.

He’s still going to read it, though. Of course.

Thankfully, it doesn’t seem to be a letter to Mr. Keating. It looks like… a poem.

_If I have to read some love poem Todd wrote to his girlfriend, I am going to drown myself._

Neil slips his glasses back on, opting to go for a more serious look. Also, Todd has always written too small, too messy.

_angel._

_i’ve never believed in a higher power,_

_not until i heard him speak_

_my name like it was something holy,_

_not until i looked at him in the sunlight_

_and there was a gold halo surrounding his head._

_i have never believed in a god_

_until he showed me that faith can_

_sound sinful._

_sin._

_there is no-_

“Neil?” Todd’s voice comes quietly from the doorway. Neil jumps.

Todd looks between Neil and the paper with wide eyes, face quickly becoming flushed. His hands are shaking, matching Neil’s own. Neil drops the paper, and it floats to the floor.

“Neil, I- I can explain, please just- just don’t-” 

“Todd, stop.”

“No! Neil, I can’t- I can’t lose you over this, please just forget it- please just… I’m _so _sorry.”

Neil can’t think of anything to say. Nothing feels like enough to calm the hysterical boy in front of him. He tries to level his voice into something calm and mild. He tries to school his face into something more neutral. There’s no controlling his rolling stomach or hammering heart, though. 

“What about that letter? That you wrote to Mr. Keating?” He asks, hands clenching into fists just thinking about it. 

“What? What letter?” Todd cocks his head ever so slightly. It’s the cutest thing Neil has ever seen, and he almost forgets to be angry. 

“‘She’s fiery and passionate and she absolutely glows. I’m head over heels.’ The letter? About your girlfriend?”

“I don’t have a girlfriend,” Todd says. He’s looking at the floor.

“Then who-?”

“Neil, I was talking about _you,” _Todd whispers. 

Oh. _Oh._

_So Charlie was right, I guess. Goddamnit._

“So, that means-”

“Don’t say anything, please. I’m sorry, okay? We can- we can just forget this ever happened. Does that sound good?”

“Todd, I’m not going to forget about this.” 

“Neil, please.”

“No, listen to me. I _wanted _that letter to be about me. I want that poem to be about me. I’m crazy about you, Todd. I’ve been crazy about you since the first day we met. I don’t know how you haven’t noticed, honestly. I’m so- I’m so different around you, like I want to live life. You make me want to live life, and not just live it, but _love _it.”

_I_ _want to be as in love with life as much as I’m in love with you, _Neil thinks. He’ll save that line for a rainy day, he decides. 

Todd is smiling, and Neil remembers the first time he’d seen Todd smile that brightly, the first time that smile had been directed at him.

_(I can take care of myself, all right?_

_No._

_What- What do you mean, no?_

_No.)_

Neil is smiling, too. He wants to kiss Todd, and never stop. He steps forward, and Todd reaches up to hold Neil’s face in his hands. Neil rests his hands somewhere on Todd’s hips, and he’s hit with the overwhelming need to touch as much of Todd as possible, to drag his fingers over every inch of his skin. He wants to memorize the map of Todd’s body so he’ll always find his way back home.

But he’ll wait. As they bring their lips together, Neil knows that he’ll wait forever for Todd. Even if he never wants to do more than kiss, even if he never lets Neil’s hands past his undershirt, Neil will cherish every little piece of himself that Todd gives him. It’s worth it to wait. 

Todd pulls back, and smiles. He’s got a look on his face, and Neil ducks his own into Todd’s shoulder.

“What?” Neil asks, self conscious.

“Nothing. I just- I knew you’d be a good kisser.”

Neil giggles into the crook of Todd’s neck.

He wants to spend the rest of his life with Todd. And he will. He’s determined.

**Author's Note:**

> this is an edited + reuploaded version of "we had the stars" because i literally hated it so much. i like this one better. kudos and comments are very much appreciated! follow me on twitter @nochildrenmp3 or on tumblr @bloodyknucklez!


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